Before The SMSB: Who Will Hold Dominion?
|followed by= }} Before The SMSB: Who Will Hold Dominion? is the fourth prequel of a series of books of the story before 2019. It was released on 31 March, 2018. Summary With victory all but assured for the Dark forces, Dorphane Giles, Chief Enforcer of the evil Empire, dispatches NoHead followers L'smae and Mr. Formidable NoHead to the NoHead Base for a top-secret mission. Burdened by the knowledge that Sheriff Bladepoint may be mounting a powerful underground resistance movement, the two NoHeads must learn to put their differences aside and focus on a crucial focal point: Superhero University. Their only hope is to subdue the institution using either diplomacy or bloodshed, while the Dark Lord Mr. Stupid NoHead launches an evil agenda of his own. Synopsis Opening In the prologue, centuries before the remainder of the plot, Baby Intelligence appears to the Knight Drimsé Ur in a vision. The vision also includes the instructor Steven Grande, Baby Intelligence's apprentice Lindsay Kellerman, and his friend turned enemy Thomas Meyer; all four of them would be destroyed by the NoHeads. The book begins with the fragments of the New Police Station which is now an ideal hiding place and safehaven with the members of the Police Grand Army being marched through the entrance. Sheriff Bladepoint stands with Roxanne Waterston and Joseph Abernathy in the top of a tower and watches his followers with a blank expression, musing that "their time is coming soon". The Third NoHead Base At the Third NoHead Base, Mr. Stupid NoHead stands in front of the Entry Gates of the fortress. Finally standing up and returning inside, he spends his free time alone indoors, eating leftover celery soup and reading Mutantry Most Wretched intently. Mr. Stupid NoHead later stares at a portrait of himself in the Imperial Throne Room of the Imperial Palace. He starts addressing the portrait and swears he would take back what was once his, and laments that his ancestors, who he names, would have been proud that he had come a step closer due to "the source followers discovered". The Almataffe He is then startled by Mr. Formidable NoHead, who tells him that he suggests an all-out attack on the Order. He denies this idea, but before Mr. Formidable NoHead can argue, a baby girl named L'smae walks in and says she might have found the suggestion to their problem. NoHead changes her diaper and they go to the meeting chamber to discuss it. During the meeting, Mr. Stupid NoHead learns that Giles and Lodd have been in a place called Viskaa, where they had found a weapon called the Almataffe and attempted to deliver it, only for the Pyters to take it and lose it to the Krath. When Mr. Formidable NoHead asks what the Almataffe is, L'smae tells him (and the audience) that Mr. Stupid NoHead is furious with his right-hand woman, Dorphane Giles, for failing to prevent the Assault on the Imperial Palace and has sent her and her underling and rival, Dot Lodd, to steal it. Unwilling to be denied the Almataffe, Mr. Stupid NoHead sends a messenger to demand for Giles, who contacts him via hologram. NoHead orders Dorphane Giles to pursue the Krath while he saw to his research of the International Alliance. Undaunted by Giles' complaints but angry for her failure, Mr. Stupid NoHead furiously admonishes Giles before turning her away and instructing her to return to her task and pursue the Krath, or to die should she fail a second time. Mr. Stupid NoHead then makes Lodd Giles' aide and resumes his research of the International Alliance. The Olbaid of Thunder Quarters Return to the Palace Utterly helpless now, Zygen tells Mr. Stupid NoHead he can take what he pleases from her, but NoHead says he already had and orders her death by Mr. Formidable NoHead. He strangles her and smashes her into a wall. The enemy revealed Reluctantly convinced by Gummi's words, the two return to the entrance to Thunder Quarters, where Bladepoint orders Gummi to warn Valora of their discovery. Bladepoint draws his sword and enters Thunder Quarters alone, sneaking around and deactivating electronic systems of defense. Suddenly, the last shield dissipates and Bladepoint is caught off guard by the Thunderqueen, who reveals that Thunder Quarters is in fact a secret staging ground for a massive Arboc army. Bladepoint keeps the Arboc at bay with his powers and demands to know where their master is, to which the Thunderqueen replies that "he is in many places." Bladepoint, gravely outnumbered, attempts to escape by shooting a Stun beam at the Thunderqueen and blows up a bridge to prevent the Arboc from following him. However, as he reaches the entrance the Olbaid appears as a massive incorporeal being of dark energy. The two engage in a battle of light and dark as the Olbaid launches a barrage of shadow energy at Bladepoint, who repels it with a force field. After an intense standoff, Bladepoint is eventually overwhelmed by the Necromancer, who appears wreathed in ice, disintegrating Bladepoint's sword and telepathically pinning him to a wall. Bladepoint's worst suspicions are confirmed as the Olbaid reveals himself to indeed be Verpus, who imprisons him in a cage. Bladepoint is rescued by Valora. Valora carries an unconscious Bladepoint into a more open area while being taunted by The Olbaid. Defacles, Welkiziwan, Ressammes, and Roxanne Waterston arrive and rescue the Sheriff. Bladepoint is saved by Valora and given to Roxanne Waterston while Welkiziwan, Defacles, and Ressammes hold off the Dartus. Verpus appears to them, but Valora and Ressammes take on the Dark Lord and frighten away hordes of zombies, banishing them all out of the fortress. At last, Verpus starts to die out and proceeds to disperse. He is finally defeated, his spirit of malevolence fleeing. Returning to the mansion, Valora heals Welkiziwan, spending the last of her power and knocking her out as Defacles supports her. Though Defacles believes the defeat of Verpus means they will be accepted by society, Ressammes tells him to take Valora and Welkiziwan to safety while he deals with the Thunderqueen. Roxanne provides Bladepoint her sword before the two of them ride to Superhero University. Hunting Dorphane Giles Mr. Stupid NoHead is then contacted by Dorphane Giles, Dot Lodd, and NR-77 on Giles' ship, the Damnation. The Dark Lord demands that his enforcer deliver the Almataffe to him as promised. However, Giles sheathes the weapon, taking its power for herself, promising that she will come for Mr. Stupid NoHead; when Lodd opposes her, she kills him. The Dark Lord tells L'smae to help mass his armies while he pursues Giles personally, making haste in his shuttle. Mr. Stupid NoHead tracked Giles to Illiun and broke into her tower, locating her on the top floor. To announce his arrival, he quietly said it was time for them to begin and provoked a large, violent explosion to demolish the wall. Whirling around, startled, but confident, Giles told him his time was up and that she had waited a long time for that moment — the time she would overthrow the Dark Lord and reorganize the NoHeads to her liking. She added that someone needed to put him in his place. Mr. Stupid NoHead said that was why he was on Illiun in the first place, to be where he belonged in the hierarchy. In response, Giles attacked him with the Almataffe, firing a beam of energy that was strong enough to decimate a city, but that Mr. Stupid NoHead blocked with his mutantry. A brief yet spectacular duel ensued, with the Almataffe preventing Giles from being destroyed by the Dark Lord's powerful applications of mutantry. Giles attempted to catch her Master off guard by attacking him with a jet of bright blue electricity with a slight tinge of green issuing from the Almataffe, which Mr. Stupid NoHead countered with a cord of lightning from his hands. As both beams of Dark energy collided producing a heating and dripping magma effect, Mr. Stupid NoHead attempted several times to catch Giles by surprise by making lightning-like tendrils pop off from the main beam, but was unsuccessful and instead hit blew apart the wall. Giles countered this by slashing the Almataffe to break the connection, alarmed at how the Dark Lord was holding her off despite the weapon she had acquired. Mr. Stupid NoHead took a step forward, but Giles blasted him into the ground, causing him to fall several stories down below, cracking the floor as he went. NoHead was briefly stunned, but he recovered and used an energy blast to shoot her away and against the wall hard enough to break it, but before she could fall out of her own tower, she took flight as Mr. Stupid NoHead flew out to intercept her. Roaring, Giles cast a large, continuous torrent of Dark waves at the Dark Lord, heavily increased in potency by the Almataffe, but the Dark Lord held it back with an exceedingly powerful torrent of energy. In a second attack, Giles gathered the black energy into a ball of incandescent light, which she released with an earsplitting yell, sending a massive shockwave of black energy and bluish white light in all directions. The explosion ripped apart the tower and set it ablaze. When she landed, the Almataffe fell from her hand. Giles moved to telekinetically reclaim it, but then it flew out from the sand, not into her hand, but that of her opponent. Giles was initially taken aback, evincing a degree of surprise as Mr. Stupid NoHead told her she had been a fool for thinking she could commit mutiny so easily. Screaming, Giles attempted to enter his body, but all her cells became infected. She then wondered if her connection, instead of being eliminated, had been twisted in upon itself, forcing her to endlessly relive her death. At that moment of realization, the enforcer wished she still had a mouth with which to scream. Arrival at Superhero University Upon learning that Sheriff Bladepoint was at Superhero University and trying to find his three children, Mr. Stupid NoHead returned there. By the time he got there, he ran into his wife, Mrs. Twisted NoHead, who informs him that the residents had already ousted the NoHeads teaching there and had begun preparing a defense against him. She explains that Miranda Butterfield activated three Holocard messengers to summon the other administrators, and started for the cafeteria with Sheriff Bladepoint and Roan Kendels following closely behind her. As they arrived in the cafeteria from the dungeons, they encountered Mrs. Twisted NoHead in the hall. When asked what she was doing there, Butterfield claimed she heard a disturbance. She was evasive when asked about Bladepoint, then slashed her hand through the air. Twisted had deflected the red gas emanating from Butterfield’s hand. She then drew her sword, but Butterfield seized a table and threw it at Mrs. Twisted NoHead, who had fled in the form of a bright blue stream of fire. Infuriated by the news, Mr. Stupid NoHead explained that he had rounded up his entire army of NoHeads, war robots, former Imperial guards, werewolves, giants, Nundus, and creatures, and they based in the forest. After his wife told him he was needed in the swath of NoHead forces, Mr. Stupid NoHead rendezvoused with L'smae and Xalvatrix and told Mr. Formidable NoHead to target the Deaformas because he knew eight efficient means to kill them. With everything in place, he stood before the university, told them Bladepoint had not come, and used the Almataffe's power to destroy the shield and a good portion of the fleet. Looking at the destruction with a sense of satisfaction as he saw the pain he was causing to his enemies, he then commanded his army to fight the police officers, professors, and students who were in the complex: the Battle of Superhero University ensued. The battle begins As the defenders of Superhero University prepared to hold off Mr. Stupid NoHead so that Bladepoint could finish his search for Hell Burnbottom, the NoHeads finished assemblage outside and Mr. Stupid NoHead ordered the immediate beginning of the assault. As Mr. Formidable NoHead blew the NoHeads’ horn, the rest of the NoHeads launch attacks on the school. The whole school shook with the force of the NoHeads’ sinister power attacks. The college defenders were able to fend off the armada using an array of tactics. Unfazed by his enemies’ defense and filled with more power than all of them combined, Mr. Stupid NoHead responded by standing before the university and judging them before sentencing them to destruction. NoHead then used the Almataffe’s power to fire a powerful blast which destroyed the shield and a good portion of the fleet, as the shield’s energy cascaded and holes began popping about it and Mr. Stupid NoHead looked at the destruction with a sense of satisfaction as he saw the pain he was causing to his enemies. The NoHeads, now unobstructed, charged into the university. Beams and bullets flew in every direction, lighting the sky with red and blue. Skirmish at the Dark Tower Mr. Stupid NoHead looked into Sheriff Bladepoint's mind and discovered he was about to extract his sons. Abernathy and Waterston split up to search for the cell with the children inside. As Bladepoint found them first, however, he was confronted by Bethany Donner and Antonio McSnake, who had just arrived in the room. Donner said that the only thing keeping her from killing him was the two seconds she required to extract the sons of Mr. Stupid NoHead and bring them to their father. Bladepoint attempted to buy time for his friends to find him by mocking Mr. Stupid NoHead and infuriating McSnake, but Donner warned McSnake against killing the Sheriff, as they needed him to unlock the prison gates. Bladepoint sardonically told them they could fight as soon as he opened the gate, which McSnake allowed, holding Donner’s hand to calm her and stop her from attacking. However, as soon as Bladepoint opened the door the three children clambered out and attacked him, quickly being cornered as he called out to his friends. Joseph Abernathy telekinetically disarmed McSnake from behind, and all five of Bladepoint’s enemies rounded on the new arrival along with Roxanne Waterston. A fierce duel erupted; Mean King tried to kill Abernathy and Waterston with telekinetic blasts, while Brute Gunray was Stunned by Waterston from behind as he rounded on the Sheriff. In the confusion, the eldest of the three, Hell Burnbottom, dropped his borrowed sword and Gunray unleashed Dark waves, setting the room ablaze. The waves began to tear the room apart. As the evil energies consumed the whole room, Waterston threw a force field around Bladepoint grabbed her arm and the two fled with Abernathy running behind them. As they left, though, Donner and McSnake saw them and the former teleported them out of the wreckage. Bladepoint thanked Donner, who responded by grinning awkwardly, grabbing Burnbottom’s hand, and fleeing. Just then, Kylee Garcia and Joseph Abernathy attempted to kill Mr. Stupid NoHead with their booby trap, but the Almataffe prevented him from being destroyed. The duel Nearby, Bladepoint noticed a dying officer who he recognized as Kade Coleman. Coleman, barely alive, told Bladepoint to take his flask. When Bladepoint took it, Coleman’s grip on Bladepoint’s pants slackened and he made Bladepoint promise that the flask would not be destroyed. Looking into Coleman’s eyes, Bladepoint asked what was in the flask, but then the gleam in Coleman’s eyes vanished, the hand holding Bladepoint’s pants fell to the floor, and Coleman’s life ebbed away. As he stepped into the clearing, the giants roared and the NoHeads rose together. Mr. Stupid NoHead had frozen, and his red eyes stared as Bladepoint moved toward him. Just then, Mrs. Twisted NoHead approached her husband, telling him that the school’s resistance was crumbling, and NoHead told Twisted there was no need to return to the fray. NoHead called off the Imperials, saying his instructions to his officers had been perfectly clear: capture Bladepoint alive. While they could kill as many of his friends as they wanted, they must not kill the Sheriff. Mr. Stupid NoHead attempted to use his prize to flatten Superhero University and destroy Sheriff Bladepoint once and for all, but was distracted by Roxanne Waterston's antics. A number of students and staff redirected Mr. Stupid NoHead's offensive beams of energy, blasting the Dark Lord into comatose and releasing the Almataffe. Bladepoint then caught the Almataffe, and Dual was able to contain its power inside a simple plastic bowl with a lid. Ending As the chaos finally settled, the Police Grand Army took the Almataffe from Mr. Stupid NoHead and stored it in a high-security vault in the city. Notes and references Category:Before The SMSB series